Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an axial flow gas laser, particularly a high-power CO.sub.2 laser with DC excitation, having at least one discharge tube of dielectric material and having first and second connection bodies, which sealingly communicate with the discharge tube, or with the connection neck branching off from it, in either case in the region of an electrical and laser gas connection point, forming a connection chamber, and are connected to laser gas inlet or outlet lines, wherein the first connection body is connected to the anode potential and the second connection body is connected to the cathode potential of a direct voltage source, and the first and second connection bodies are disposed with a tubular axial spacing with respect to one another, so that the discharge tube with its gas chamber forms a discharge path between the anode and cathode potentials.
As high-power CO.sub.2 lasers, such gas lasers have a fast axial flow of laser gas through them; they are embodied in particular with direct current (DC excitation), and they require a turbulent gas flow for stabilization of the gas discharge. In the production of the turbulent gas flow in the discharge path, the resonator geometry and the physics of the gas discharge must be taken into account; previously this required the production of complicated, expensive discharge tubes. These are predominantly quartz glass tubes, which are made by hand and flared at one end. A lateral inlet is often fused in on the opposite end, and into this inlet a nozzlelike body encompassing an electrode tip bent at a right angle and made of a tungsten alloy, a turned brass part for contacting and retaining it, and a ceramic body that surrounds the electrode tip are introduced in the form of an insert. The nozzlelike body is pressed against the seat faces of the lateral inlet by means of a helical compression spring and by a turned part. This arrangement is sealed in particular with a silicon hose, which is slipped over the outside onto the formed-on glass neck of the lateral inlet. This embodiment necessitates the fusing on of a glass neck to form the lateral inlet on the discharge tube, as well as the production, assembly and adjustment of a plurality of precision parts.
The object of the invention is to reduce the aforementioned production and assembly expense, or in other words to devise an axial flow gas laser, in particular a high-power CO.sub.2 laser with DC excitation, in which manually fusing on a quartz glass neck or the like to form connection bodies is unnecessary, so that the laser gas inlet line for forming a turbulent gas flow and the electrical connection can be achieved in a simpler manner that before. The intrinsically advantageous generation of the electrical field in the discharge tube by means of an electrode tip, however, should be maintained.